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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24316924">The Power Inside</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerraCottaNightmare/pseuds/TerraCottaNightmare'>TerraCottaNightmare</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Like No One Ever Was [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Wolf (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bad Parent Sheriff Stilinski, Gen, Hamsters, Let them say fuck, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Not Beta Read, Pack Mom Stiles Stilinski, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Spay and neuter your pets kids, Swearing, Well - Freeform, handwaved magic rules, like i love him but dude, look i wrote this all in one sitting it may suck, more like kinda past neglectful parent sheriff stilinski, not me, please, raise your kid, who knows how magic works in teen wolf?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:21:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,399</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24316924</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerraCottaNightmare/pseuds/TerraCottaNightmare</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles tries to learn magic, we learn the hamster story, and a talk is had with Scott.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Like No One Ever Was [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1099131</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>371</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Power Inside</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Yay, it hasn't been and entire year this time!! :D<br/>SOrry for the delay, I tend to flip through fandoms more than most people change clothes. But finally we're back on Teen Wolf!<br/>I hope you like this, it's a lot less cuddles this time unfortunately, but hey, we get to hear the hamster story! Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Admittedly, Peter’s knowledge of Sparks is far more limited than he’d like. Nearly all of it can be summed up in a single sentence-- “extremely powerful magic users powered by belief; different from druids.”</p><p>	That sentence, however, put him above and beyond the entire rest of his nephew’s pack, and probably the rest of Beacon Hills save Deaton, who had offered up a whole lot of nothing helpful. Even the Argent’s and their bestiary didn’t distinguish between Sparks and druids, or even druids and witches, which had left Argent with a rather odd expression on his face as he stared down at the book.</p><p>	Perhaps he was thinking of the magic that had, in Stiles’ instinct-driven haze, frozen his father in place. Perhaps he was wondering if he’d ever see him again. Peter didn’t claim to know what the man was thinking, nor did he care.</p><p>	At any rate, he’s the best bet for helping Stiles understand his powers, sifting through research and snapping him back to attention when his mind wanders; and it wanders near constantly.</p><p>	“Focus,” he tuts as Stiles’ attention flits off yet again. “The core of a Spark’s power is belief. You must believe, as wholly as you can, that--”</p><p>	“Yeah, I know, ‘Believe that the cup will come to you or else it won’t work, Stiles, stop getting distracted, Stiles, who cares that you literally have ADHD Stiles you should be able to do this you literally did this--’”</p><p>	Peter frowns at the boy but doesn’t say anything about the mocking falsetto that sounds absolutely nothing like him. Partly because it would hardly help calm him down. Partly because revenge is sweeter when no one sees it coming.</p><p>	Stiles pulls at the short hair atop his head-- too long to be a buzz cut, but not much longer than it had been back--</p><p>	Before.</p><p>	He slumps in his desk chair, an enormous gust of air escaping his lungs as his eyes slide shut. “Can we just-- Take a break? Please, dude?”</p><p>	Peter grimaces. As relatively calm Stiles has been about allowing him in around the pack’s living space-- about interacting with him in general, in fact-- the rest of the pack had made their displeasure abundantly clear. None had attacked him (yet) but he couldn’t walk past one of Derek’s new betas without them flashing their eyes and growling.</p><p>	Not that they should trust him, really, but it’s rather annoying when all he’s trying to do was help. He limits his time in the house as much as he possibly can.</p><p>	“I suppose we aren’t getting anywhere. You have five minutes.”</p><p>	Stiles groans. “But we’ve been at this for hours!”</p><p>	“Maybe you’d have gotten more time if you hadn’t called me dude.”</p><p>	Stiles sighs once more but doesn’t respond, staring instead at the ceiling. Peter can practically hear the thoughts in his head, buzzing about like hornets as his expression and scent flickered along with them.</p><p>	“I hadn’t thought Miss Martin would be rushing to help with anything else supernatural after all that messy business.”</p><p>	“Oh, you mean you driving her half-mad and forcing her to resurrect you?” Stiles glares at him, icy and sharp as a blade. It’s the first time he's shown any outright hostility towards Peter since the man had, well, driven one of his friends half-mad and forced her to resurrect him; in a way, it’s good to know he hasn’t completely bought into his “new and reformed” act, though he’s still far too blase towards a man who’d tried to kill him. He nods, accepting the jab.</p><p>	“Pretty easy-- I just reminded her of how bad Scott is under pressure.”</p><p>	“Oh?” Peter raises a brow. “That sounds like a story.”</p><p>        “The hamster story,” Stiles’ face lights up in a sort of manic glee. His expression, paired with the way he spins his chair to face Peter full on, does nothing to dissuade the feeling that he’s made a very, very big mistake in asking.</p><p>        “So it’s the third grade. Scotty is his pure lil cinnamon roll self, too good for this world, too pure, and we were in the same class. The teacher had us separated after the thing with the duct tape and the sprinklers--” Peter blinks but refuses to ask. The little he can remember from town gossip is already too much, “So I was stuck between Jackson and Greenburg. Not sure how the teacher thought that would lead to less chaos, but she was only like four years off from a very public nervous breakdown at that point, which I had nothing to do with, i swear. Anyways.</p><p>         “Scott ends up in between-- aw shoot what’s her name… something with a C? Or a K…? Korey maybe, no that’s wrong… Anyways, he’s between her and this girl, Kellyanne Baker.”</p><p>         Peter tilts his head slightly. “As in Joey Baker?”</p><p>        Stiles grins, toes pushing his chair from side to side. “Her dad, yeah.”</p><p>        Joseph Baker, former shoe-in for mayor-- and, as it turned out, serial adulterer and homophobe. The scandal had driven him all the way off to Pennsylvania; apparently he had family there.</p><p>        “Kellyanne was pretty popular-- her birthday pirates were up there with Lydia’s and Jackson’s for little kids, and getting invited to one was reason for huge bragging rights. Heck, talking to her was big bragging rights. And that spring break, she and her whole family were leaving for some vacation out of state and she decided Scott would have the honor of taking care of Sprinkles, her brand new, much beloved hamster.”</p><p>        He brushes a bit of soot off his arm. “The problem with that being, Scott had asthma back before. Bad asthma. Like, rushed- to- the- hospital- multiple- times, bad asthma. By the time we were in high school it had calmed down enough for him to be fine working with Deaton, but back then? Pets were out of the question, especially ones that lived in sawdust. There was no way his mother would let him take care of it.</p><p>        “But you didn’t say no to Kellyanne Baker. The last kid who tried got in trouble for bullying, and he had a good enough track record to start with. Scott, well, he’d had me dragging him down with me ever since he moved here.”</p><p>        Peter raises an eyebrow. Stiles snorts, flapping a hand in his direction. “Like you didn’t already know I was a little hellion as a kid. Anyway, Kellyanne asks Scott in the middle of class, people are whispering and staring, and Scott panics and says yes.</p><p>       “So he spends the entire afternoon panicking even more-- what’s he gonna do? Kellyanne lived across town, and biking was a fifty-fifty chance of an asthma attack even without flower jizz ruining outside for everyone--”</p><p>        Peter will deny snorting at such juvenile humor to the day he dies for good.</p><p>        “His mom won’t let him within ten feet of a hamster, but he can’t just leave the little thing to fend for itself for an entire week. Scott’s always been real soft for animals, not that I blame him. So he comes to me, stressed out of his nine year old mind, crying. Looking for one of my genius plans. And I smack him upside the head and say I’ll do it, obviously, come on.</p><p>        “Scott gives me the key to the place, and I manage to keep the thing clean, fed, watered, and alive for six out of seven days without breaking anything or either of our parents noticing anything was wrong; I told dad I was going over Scott’s, not that he really heard me probably, anyway--”</p><p>        Peter’s grin freezes a little on his face at the casual remark. Stiles’ heartbeat is steady, his scent without even a hint of bitterness; he finds it normal, average, that his father would not only not care where his nine year old son was going alone every day for a week, but that he wouldn’t even hear or process that he’d been spoken to.</p><p>        Memories from-- from before are hazy, muddled and twisted and half-dreams and half-nightmares. Even so, he remembers the aftermath of Claudia Stilinski’s death. She’d been a teacher at the middle school, and both Phillip and Laura had been near-inconsolable when they’d heard the news. Half the family had attended the funeral, along with half the town, so it seemed. And amongst the throng, just barely on the edge of his conscience, he remembers sharing a glance with his sister as the Sheriff had broken down fully, grief and alcohol rolling off of him like a cloud of smog; sharing a second look when they saw him back in his cruiser a bare week later.</p><p>        Mayhaps he hadn’t recovered quite so fast as he’d like everyone to believe.</p><p>        Either Stiles is too immersed in his tale to notice Peter’s sudden distraction or he covered his reaction quickly enough that it wasn’t noticed. He plows on without comment.</p><p>        “So it’s Sunday morning. The Baker’s are due back at 4 o’clock sharp, and Scott is the one who bikes over to fill up the food and water-- he has to drop off the key or whatever so he can finally rest easy-- only to find the nightmare scenario--”</p><p>        “A dead hamster?” Peter is oddly invested in the story; he tries not to watch Stiles’ fingertips too closely as they flutter and twitch through the air in various wild gestures.</p><p>        “Worse-- an overturned tank and a missing hamster. Of all the days for the little bastard to make a run for it, it just had to be the day they were coming home.”</p><p>	“Naturally.”</p><p>	“He searches the place top to bottom. No hamster. He calls me and I search again, no hamster, not even an indication of where it might be. Kellyanne’s room is still trashed, it’s noon, and I’m officially two steps from a panic attack when I decide we have to do something drastic.</p><p>	“I tell Scott it’s not looking great right now, but I have a plan--”</p><p>	“Always reassuring to hear coming from you, I’m sure.”</p><p>	“Hey, my plans are perfectly fine when we have enough information to go off of! It’s not my fault pretty much all the legit lore I can find is in freaking Latin or Greek, or, like, Sanskrit!” His irritation is palpable, and he shakes a single glowing finger at Peter before continuing.</p><p>	“We pool every cent we have and a few we find in the cushions, bike to the pet shop, and buy a hamster we hope looks similar enough to Sprinkles to pass. We drop off Scott’s bike and he rides on the back of mine, to hold the hamster and lessen the chances of him having an asthma attack-- it was super close, the pollen was awful and he was really stressed-- but we made it there with time to spare. We clean up the room, put New Sprinkles in the cage, and make sure the house is back in order from my, admittedly not very careful, searching.”</p><p>	He pulls the glass of water closer before sighing. “And that’s where the saga of Sprinkles would have ended, if it wasn’t for those meddling hamsters. See, Original Sprinkles was a female hamster, and New Sprinkles was a male. We figured it wasn’t that big a deal, it’s not like you could really tell, and there was only one hamster in a closed up tank, so neither Sprinkles had been spayed or neutered-- can you even spay or neuter a hamster?” Stiles frowns contemplatively before moving on.</p><p>	“A few months later, the Bakers are overrun with baby hamsters, just running free throughout the house. Dozens of baby hamsters; eating their food, crapping everywhere, just generally causing problems. They’re absolutely beside themselves-- it’s clearly multiple litters of hamsters, but none of the babies are inside of the cage-- in fact, most of them are in the parent’s room on the other side of the house. Finally they set up a nanny cam, and what do they see but Kellyanne, letting New Sprinkles out of his cage. Apparently she lets him sleep on her pillow. Naturally the little fucker wasn’t exactly staying put, but they didn’t find Original Sprinkles for another month-- she’d given birth to a new round of babies in Mrs. Baker’s sock drawer.”</p><p>	Peter can’t help it-- he snorts inelegantly. He’d gone to school with Mrs. Baker back when she’d been Linda Royce, and she more than deserved to find a horde of hamsters nesting in her unmentionables. In fact, just imagining the look on her face is damn near therapeutic.</p><p>	“So they now have two fully grown hamsters, about a billion baby hamsters, and a lot of questions. They go to Melissa, Melissa spills that she would never let Scott take care of a hamster even short-term, and Scott spills my involvement.”</p><p>	“Not one for discretion then?”</p><p>	“It’s not like that-- Scott is the worst liar I’ve ever met, and he’s awful under pressure, which I think we’ve established.</p><p>	“So we’re busted, right?” His eyes gleam as he leans back in his chair, drifting slowly back and forth without seeming to notice the motion.</p><p>	“Let me guess-- you had a plan.”</p><p>	“A pretty good one, I think, given that we only had a few days notice to throw it all together. And we were nine.</p><p>	“I knew the second anyone asked the clerk at the pet store, we’d be screwed. I wasn’t exactly anonymous, and Scott and I a-- were never far from each other, especially back then. We needed the clerk to lie. So I did a bit of digging-- don’t give me that look, if dad didn’t want me going through his files he should’ve locked them up better, I could’ve picked that lock at seven. Turns out said clerk had a bit of a problem with drinking on the job. Didn’t take long to catch him in the act and imply that, unless he went along with my plan, he’d be on his third strike and out of his third job in as many months. </p><p>	“So they get us all together-- Melissa, my dad, and the Baker’s, all looking for answers. Kellyanne is blubbering about her parents trying to sell “her hamster’s babies, her grandkids, how could they”, and Melissa crouches in front of us and gives us the most no-nonsense look I’d seen before or since.</p><p>	“And Scott bursts into tears. That wasn’t a part of the plan, so I start freaking out, but Melissa hugs him and he chokes out the truth, for the most part. He sobs about how Kellyanne forced him to pet sit even though he’s got asthma, so I helped him out.</p><p>	“So he’s apologizing to Melissa, to dad for getting me into trouble, even to me once or twice before I step in. I pretend to blow up, yelling how it’s all Kellyanne’s fault for making us buy her another hamster, how she kept bragging about all the hamsters she would have and promising people they could have one if they did things for her.</p><p>	“See, Kellyanne was the type who, even by third grade, everyone was absolutely done with. Making kids move seats because she felt like it, stealing, getting others in trouble if they tried to say anything. So we knew if anyone asked, we’d get more than enough backup-- and we did. At the price of the actual story once everything died down and Kellyanne was pulled out of school by her parents. They moved away like two months later, and we ended up not needing the clerk to lie at all-- though he still ended up getting fired. He was kind of a dick anyway.</p><p>	“We effectively hamster-bombed a family, drove a bully out of school, and escaped without so much as a slap on the wrist.</p><p>	“Pretty amazing, huh?” He grins wide, and Peter chuckles.</p><p>	“What’s amazing,” he leans forward, catching Stiles’ wrist, the same one he held when offering the bite so long ago, “Is how very oblivious you are.”</p><p>	Stiles stares at him. Then his glowing hand, little sparks crackling off of his fingertips. The way his chair was drifting slowly back and forth without him moving his feet. The glass of water that had been halfway across the room, at his elbow.</p><p>	“Are,” he mutters without so much as a blink, “You kidding me.”</p><p>	Peter throws his head back and laughs. <br/>*************</p><p>	He’s hesitant to go to Scott’s, to invade his territory while smelling like so many other wolves. While he’s in a different pack. But telling that story-- one of so many, he and Scott against the world-- just brought to his attention how lost and lonely he felt without him. The pack was pack, closer than friends and family and almost always with him. </p><p>       But Scott was his brother. They’d chosen each other after their families had begun to splinter, laughed together, cried together, shared clothes and a bed and even parents, though unofficially. Being at odds with him felt downright unnatural.</p><p>       So he compromises and ambushes him after lacrosse.</p><p>       “Not today, Stiles, Allison is waiting--”</p><p>       “I’ll be quick, I just-- I really need to talk to you. Please?”</p><p>       Scott’s eyes scan his face, and he must look suitably pathetic, because he nods and sits down on one of the benches after shooting Allison a quick text.</p><p>       “So,” he says. “What’s up?”</p><p>       He cringes, and Stiles is right there with him. The air is undeniably awkward in a way it never has been before, even the one time they’d gotten in such a bad argument they hadn’t spoken for two weeks. It hurts, deep down inside.</p><p>       “I just… I miss you.”</p><p>       Scott’s face softens, a small grin growing on his face. “I’ve missed you too.”</p><p>       Things are a little easier from there, but they’re both hesitant-- Scott avoiding talking about Allison or his powers as much as is possible, Stiles glossing over the pack’s presence and Peter’s especially. Scott hasn’t brought him up, and he’s not going to be the one to open that particular can of worms.</p><p>       “So uh, I actually…”</p><p>       He pauses, scratching at the back of his neck. “I didn’t get a chance to ask at the time, but, uh, what, exactly did you even do to Gerard?”</p><p>       “Oh,” he looks Scott in the eye, this wolf who hates being a wolf, who’d idealized being human so much, and wondered if he’d think less of him for being a little extra.</p><p>       “According to Deaton, I’m a Spark. Like a druid I can control mountain ash and stuff, but we have different power sources and Sparks focus less on the whole nature-balance kinda thing.”</p><p>       “So basically you’re Harry Potter?”</p><p>       Stiles is caught so off guard that he laughs, long and hard, far more than is warranted, but Scott is right there with him, both of them giggling their way back to decent standing.</p><p>       And then he opens his stupid mouth. “If, uh, if you don’t mind me asking-- you did have a plan for Gerard, right? Like, you weren’t just gonna let him level up Jackson and destroy all the stuff right?”</p><p>       Scott dips his head slightly, avoiding his eyes. “Well…”</p><p>       “Wha-- You didn’t?!”</p><p>       “No!” Scott’s eyes are wide-- wide and guilty. “No, of course I did, I just-- I don’t think… you’ll like it very much.”</p><p>       And he spills his guts, refusing to look at Stiles as he spells out his plan-- letting Gerard force the bite, replacing his medication and leaving him weakened enough to be dealt with safely.</p><p>	Stiles-- he can’t just sit there and listen to his brother insulting his pack. Listen to him try to defend hurting his alpha that way. It feels like he can’t breathe and his chest feels tight and he has to ignore Scott, calling after him, somehow not understanding what he’d done wrong, as though he doesn’t know that forcing the bite must be just as if not more traumatising than being forcibly bitten, as if he didn’t see how upset Derek had been, not smelled it on him-- but then he’d always had so little control, been so oblivious, more so than other of the other betas and their wolves were still practically children--</p><p>	The name hits him like a truck.</p><p>	“Cora,” he mutters. “He sat between Kellyanne Baker and Cora… Hale.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes, you can spay/neuter a hamster. Please do your part to keep animal populations under control.<br/>So what'd you think? :D Just a little foreshadowing of next time~<br/>Hope you liked this! Bye bye till next time!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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